Stories in the streets

Concord Museum reveals facts, lore behind names of town's historic roads

Street names serve such a practical purpose, it's easy to gloss over why they were chosen - even in a town like Concord, with such strong historical connections to the beginning of the American Revolution.

Residents of Nancy Road in Concord could go their whole lives assuming their street was named after a woman when the road was really named after a town in France where a Concord developer was stationed in World War I.

Or without knowing that Thoreau Street honored Henry David Thoreau, whose book "Walden" described his experience of living in a cabin at the town's Walden Pond, only after Ralph Waldo Emerson refused to have the street named after him. Emerson Road, a small residential street, was named after the Sage of Concord in 1925, 43 years after his death.

College Road in Concord probably got its name as students and faculty of Harvard College relocated to the town in 1775 because the campus buildings in Cambridge were being used as barracks for Colonial troops fighting in the Revolutionary War.

"The history of Concord is really in these streets," said Barbara Forman, Concord Museum interpreter. "I don't think anybody knows Harvard College was moved out here for a year."

The Concord Museum has taken this concept of the history behind street names and turned it into an exhibit running through Jan. 19. In the "Street Smarts" exhibit, the history of 30 street names is explored, and that history is matched with something from the museum's considerable collection of 35,000 arti facts.

"In the collection, there's a lot of items related to the street names," said David Wood, Concord Museum curator. "There's a counterpoint between the objects that tell their own story and the stories behind the streets."

For Fairhaven Road, the museum has matched the history of the road - named for a hill near Walden Pond - with Henry David Thoreau's poem "Fair Haven," which his sister Sophia Thoreau transcribed on a hickory leaf.

Fuller Lane, named for noted feminist journalist Margaret Fuller, is matched with a rare silhouette portrait of Fuller, who was also the editor of Emerson's transcendental journal, "The Dial."

The featured item of Elsinore Street is a pair of work boots from the road's first resident. The man hailed from Denmark, and the street probably got its name from the town in Denmark that is the setting of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

"It is great. Often we don't question our street names, and this is very informative," said Pat Oliphant, a Concord resident who lives on Bedford Street. "It might be great for younger people to take a look at this."

Some street names are as obvious as they sound. Lowell Road runs to Lowell. Old Bedford Road was the original road running to Bedford.

None of the streets in Concord had names until 1854, when a town task force helped end the confusion by naming some of the main roads. Walden Street was named at the time for Walden Pond, the same year Thoreau's book made the pond famous.

"I like that Concord retains its sense of history," said John Oliphant, Bedford Street resident and Pat's husband. "I love it. I'm a history buff."

The rest of the streets were named in phases as developments and roads were built.

The new road to Bedford became Bedford Street. Liberty Street, which runs roughly parallel to the Concord River near the Old North Bridge, was named for the famous Minuteman battle fought at that site April 19, 1775. The road to the acres of fertile Concord farmland became the Old Road to 9 Acre Corner.

Monument Street was named after the Minute Man monument by Daniel Chester French at Old North Bridge, while Monument Square was named later for the Civil War monument built in 1866 in historic Concord. Lexington Road, originally called the Way to the Bay and then Bay Road, was renamed for Concord's Revolutionary connection to Lexington.

"You drive by road signs all the time and don't realize they are carrying so much information," Wood said. "It sort of covers the whole town."

Brad Kane can be reached at brad.j.kane@gmail.com.